Build 2013 Recap

Editor’s note: The following post was written by Windows Phone Development MVP Mayur Tendulkar

Just few days ago Microsoft hosted an annual developer conference - BUILD 2013 in San Francisco, CA. This conference provided a lot more information and insights into what is coming up next. And indeed the future looks bright. But more than anything, a developer working on Microsoft technologies must attend this conference for early access and networking. And this one was no exception with more than 5000 developers attending this conference at the venue and more than 60000 developers attending it using live streaming. This event was a huge success.

In this BUILD, Day 01 keynote delivered by Steve Ballmer, was all about “Rapid Releases” with updating Windows 8 to 8.1 and introducing more new features. Along with it, to support new Windows 8.1 development Microsoft released a public preview of Visual Studio 2013 with next version of .NET Framework. Microsoft has provided all Windows 8.1 and Visual Studio 2013 preview bits for download and evaluate. This keynote was followed by various sessions on building Windows Store apps for Windows 8.1

Day 02 Keynote delivered by Satya Nadella was exciting too. It was all about Server and Azure offerings. The key benefits offered during this keynote were: General Availability (GA) of Windows Azure Websites with full SLA and enterprise support. Along with it, now Windows Azure Mobile services are available with 20 MB free SQL Database with 10 free Web Services. Visual Studio 2013 Preview will support Azure development, with in-built server explorer browsing through mobile services and new wizard to add Push Notifications to Windows Store apps. The biggest news in this keynote was Auto-Scaling on Windows Azure and no-billing when Virtual Machine is stopped/shut-down mode. This also included per-minute billing.

Right from the Keynote till last session, attendees could feel zest in the atmosphere. There were queues not just for getting free goodies like Surface Pro, Acer Iconia Tablet, but there were queues to attend sessions as well. There were hundreds of people standing in queue outside room to attend Scott’s session. And most importantly, Scott visited each one in the queue. Scott played some nice videos, did pushups on stage and entertained people while his session started and all people were enjoying it. Anyone working on Microsoft technologies MUST attend Scott Hanselman’s session LIVE in room. This is where you get to see nice people like Scott, Anders, etc… and learn from them.

Overall, the 3 days event was a nice get together and learning from tech pundit experience. The cool, windy atmosphere at that time in San Francisco, made the event more enjoyable. I wish, the event was at least hosted for 5 days with more content and more fun. But for it, we’ll have next BUILD J